Set nine years after the first book in the series: Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods was almost as good. And even though there were a few things in the book that didn’t go my own way, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

As a child, Rose Franklin made an astonishing discovery: a giant metallic hand, buried deep within the earth. As an adult, she’s dedicated her brilliant scientific career to solving the mystery that began that fateful day: Why was a titanic robot of unknown origin buried in pieces around the world? Years of investigation have produced intriguing answers–and even more perplexing questions. But the truth is closer than ever before when a second robot, bigger than the first, materializes and lashes out with deadly force.

Now humankind faces a nightmare invasion scenario made real, as more colossal machines touch down across the globe. But Rose and her team at the Earth Defense Corps refuse to surrender. They can turn the tide if they can unlock the last secrets of an advanced alien technology. The greatest weapon humanity wields is knowledge in a do-or-die battle to inherit the Earth . . . and maybe even the stars.

Ok so if you read my review of Sleeping Giants, you’ll know how much the ending of that book made me want to scream with excitement. We got the answers to the Sleeping Giants epilogue, and even though it was pretty cool to find out what happened, I didn’t really understand it… I love science, don’t get me wrong, I find it fascinating, but the theory behind SG epilogue was crazy. My mind was boggled.

“We come together at a crossroads between war and peace; between disorder and integration; between fear and hope.”

– Sylvain Neuvel, Waking Gods

However, that being said, that part of the story wasn’t a big part of Waking Gods. This book focused more on the fact that loads more Giants are stepping foot onto Earth and the EDC needs to figure out why the Giants are here, what they want, and to get rid of them. One of the things that I absolutely loved about this book was learning about alien technology. The weapons that the Giants have are incredible (very dangerous, but incredible!) What they managed to do was just… mind blowing. I also think the reasoning for the Giants coming to Earth was quite interesting and Neuvel definitely included some political thoughts and feelings when writing this. Neuvel’s writing echoed some of the thoughts of today’s society and even though I already think that we are living in dangerous times with all of the prejudice, Neuvel cemented it into my mind.

Like Sleeping Giants, Waking Gods is told in the format of recordings like interviews, missions logs, personal journal entries and new reports. Again, our friend with no name conducts the interviews with the characters. What I loved is that we find out a little bit of information about the nameless character and I think their background is very very interesting.

In my opinion, I thought that the first book was better than the second. Waking Gods seemed a bit… I don’t know… rushed? I’m not sure… So much happened in such a short space of time and if there is going to be a third book, I think that some of the things that happened in Waking Gods, could have been put into the third book and then that means that Neuvel could have described things a bit more, had more characters arcs (because there wasn’t that much character development).

Overall, this book wasn’t as good as the first in the series but it was still an enjoyable read. I loved reading about the Giants and the type of alien technology that they have.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review 

Released 6th April